


Old Pains

by HewerOfCaves



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HewerOfCaves/pseuds/HewerOfCaves
Summary: If he had only one hand, it meant he wasn’t in Angband. Missing right hand meant safety, meant an end to the pain.Maedhros is unsure of his reality after a nightmare.
Relationships: Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 92





	Old Pains

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was born after reading [these posts.](https://arofili.tumblr.com/post/189544969932/ruthlesslistenerhonestly-as-much-as-i-love)
> 
> Not beta'd, not a native speaker.

Maedhros didn’t move as consciousness returned to him. The vision dispersed but the terror remained. _I am not there, I am back,_ he thought stubbornly but failed to convince himself.

 _Back where?_ He tried to remember what happened after he had been freed from the mountain because he had been, _he had,_ but his memory crashed against the impenetrable wall of terror and recoiled, refusing to cooperate. 

_I am in a bed,_ he told himself. His heart made a wild leap to his throat. _In my bed, mine, I am not hanging from the mountain, I am not anywhere inside Angband, I am lying in my bed._ Where? He could feel the sheets but barely. As if his entire body has gone numb. Or as if they weren’t real. The vision he had with his eyes closed? open? had felt more real.

 _This hasn’t happened to me in a very long time._ It was a rational thought and he tried to snatch it, to understand what it meant, to use it as a flaming torch against the terror walling him in, but the thought fled and he forgot it immediately.

His eyes were closed after all. Shut against the horrors outside. Or were they inside? They had to be. He wasn’t on the mountain. Fingon had cut him off. Yes! Fingon had cut off his hand and saved him.

He tried to move the fingers on his right hand. They did. He stifled the sound rising in his throat. _I feel them but they are not really there._ This was a rational thought too, he could recognize that. If he had only one hand, it meant he wasn’t in Angband. Missing right hand meant safety, meant an end to the pain. He always relied on it to ground him in reality whenever this happened. _I am actually making sense,_ he thought, terror abating. 

Encouraged by it, he slowly brought his hand (hands?) to his face, took a breath and opened his eyes. 

The sight that greeted him sent shards of ice through his veins, freezing his breath. He lost feeling in his legs.

In the unforgiving, terrible, bright light, he could clearly see two shaking hands. 

Terror rose again in a mighty wave and pulled him under. Thoughts swam in his head like flotsam, shattered and unconnected. He stayed silent and motionless only thanks to a long-buried instinct. But even that instinct wasn’t enough to stop him from reacting when he felt movement from behind. 

Even as he whirled around with his left hand closed in a fist to land a blow on whoever was skulking near, he had the time to wonder how he knew that Fingon had cut his hand off if it hadn’t happened yet. 

The sight of Fingon, who had dodged his punch and slid out of the bed almost gracefully, did not answer the question.

“I have two hands,” Maedhros said, surprised that he was able to find his voice.

Fingon peered at his hands from the floor. “Yes,” he confirmed, “Though I wish you had not tried to test them on me.”

Thoughts were still spinning in a whirlpool in Maedhros’s head, but he had enough presence of mind to feel guilty.

“I am sorry,” he said. And then, “Where are we?”

Fingon made a funny face in a very obvious and doomed to fail effort to keep his expression neutral. He sat on the edge of the bed and folded his hands in his lap. He had always known when his touch would be welcome and when Maedhros was too wound up to accept it. 

“You do not remember?” Fingon asked.

Maedhros looked out of the window on the lush garden, the trees a shade greener than they had a right to be, the sun closer and brighter but not blinding. He looked back at his hands. The fingers on the right one were still twitching.

“Oh,” he said, “Tirion. No, right outside Tirion.”

Fingon nodded. Maedhros slumped on the bed, relief turning him boneless. Fingon moved a little closer.

“Are you going back to sleep?” he asked.

“No. I’ve had enough of that. I had a terrible dream. And then I woke up and I had two hands, so I thought… I always forget they have given it back.” A laugh escaped from him, scratching his throat. “Maybe I should have it cut off to avoid situations like this?”

“Don’t count on me this time,” Fingon said. He took the offending hand and kissed the palm. “I can offer nothing more,” he said.

Maedhros looked at him curiously. _It’s not mine,_ he thought out of the blue and barely resisted the urge to pull the hand back. There was something wrong in watching Fingon kiss it when it shouldn’t have been there, when Maedhros couldn’t recognize it as his own. 

Fingon’s gaze fell on him, promising a talk Maedhros wasn’t ready for, and Maedhros laced the fingers of the right hand through Fingon’s.

“Stay with me?” he asked. 

Fingon reached for his left and lay down next to him, Maedhros’s hands between his.

“Of course,” he said.


End file.
